Is This The World Record For Most Official RPG Monsters?

Paizo's fifth major monster book for the Pathfinder RPG just hit store shelves. It contains 300 new monsters, and you can grab is as a hardcover for $44.99; is this a record for the number of official monsters in a supported RPG? "Creatures strange beyond imagining and more terrifying than any nightmare lurk in the dark corners of the world and the weird realms beyond. Within this book, you'll find hundreds of monsters for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Face off against devils and dragons, deep ones and brain moles, robots and gremlins, and myriad other menaces! Yet not every creature needs to be an enemy, as whimsical liminal sprites, helpful moon dogs, and regal seilenoi all stand ready to aid you on your quests—if you prove yourself worthy."

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UPDATE: Apparently 2E holds the record still by some margin.

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I don't know how many Pathfinder monsters there are. If we include official ones only, five Bestiaries at 300 apiece comes to about 1,500 critters. Does that win Paizo the prize for most official monsters? What if we include critters from supplements and adventure paths? Is there a tabletop roleplaying game which beats Pathfinder at this point? At 7 years of age it's certainly miles ahead of its parent, D&D 3.5. Or am I way off-base and overlooking something obvious which dwarfs even Pathfinder's mighty library?

Bestiary 5 is now available for comments and ratings.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, my immediate thought would be that 2nd Ed should still have it beaten, what with the 15 numbered MCs and the four annuals. But once you include Pathfinder's AP volumes (which have 5-6 new monsters per issue), you get another huge batch. Of course, many of those have been reprinted in recent Bestiaries.

So... it's close. I guess someone would need to do the actual count to be sure. And I'm certainly not volunteering!

 

[Xavian Starsider]

If you want to count third party monsters, Pathfinder probably runs into many thousands.

Not to mention that counting 3rd party would forever put Pathfinder behind D&D 3rd edition, since all of Pathfinder could be considered 3rd party content for 3rd edition.

 

[Kramodlog]

I prefere different monsters under the same rules, than the same monsters under different rules.

 

[Echohawk]

So... it's close. I guess someone would need to do the actual count to be sure. And I'm certainly not volunteering!

Me! Me! Pick me!

<-- a considerable amount of time passes here -->

There seem to be 4353 distinct monsters for which an AD&D 2nd Edition statistics block was published in an official source. That includes variations (e.g., "Aarokocra, Athasian") and unique creatures (e.g., "Dendar, the Night Serpent") as separate monsters, as long as they had their own stat block. Duplicate entries for the same creature were not counted.

The five Bestiaries claim to cover ±1550 critters between them. Unless there are more than 2800 additional Pathfinder monsters hiding in other products, Pathfinder still has some catching up to do.

 

[delericho]

There seem to be 4353 distinct monsters for which an AD&D 2nd Edition statistics block was published in an official source.

The five Bestiaries claim to cover ±1550 critters between them. Unless there are more than 2800 additional Pathfinder monsters hiding in other products, Pathfinder still has some catching up to do.

So not so close after all, then.

 

[Kramodlog]

Me! Me! Pick me!

<-- a considerable amount of time passes here -->

There seem to be 4353 distinct monsters for which an AD&D 2nd Edition statistics block was published in an official source. That includes variations (e.g., "Aarokocra, Athasian") and unique creatures (e.g., "Dendar, the Night Serpent") as separate monsters, as long as they had their own stat block. Duplicate entries for the same creature were not counted.

The five Bestiaries claim to cover ±1550 critters between them. Unless there are more than 2800 additional Pathfinder monsters hiding in other products, Pathfinder still has some catching up to do.

Wow. How did you pull that off?

It isn't that surprising. For all the complaints about 4e, PF and 3.5 being bloated, they do not compete with the quantity of material made under 2e.

 

[Torg Smith]

Here is the 3E monster index with 2678 entries.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/monsters&tablesort=1

 

[Echohawk]

Wow. How did you pull that off?

I started with a reasonably complete list of 2nd Edition creatures, eliminated all the duplicates and counted the remainder. (It helped that I already had that list.)

It isn't that surprising. For all the complaints about 4e, PF and 3.5 being bloated, they do not compete with the quantity of material made under 2e.

See that's not necessarily true.

As far as monsters go, if I apply the same counting criteria to 3.X Edition monsters, and only count each type of dragon once, despite many age categories, I get a total of 4291 official 3rd Edition monsters with stat blocks. That's pocket change away from the 2nd Edition total.

The Compendium for 4th Edition lists 5315 distinct creatures, which is thousand-odd more than 2nd Edition had.

And as far as number of products goes, Pathfinder is currently neck and neck with the number of products per month that 2nd Edition had at its peak. (Admittedly, any comparison there does depend on exactly what products you choose to count.)

I think "bloat" is as much customer perception of the extent of the rules system and options as it is an objective measure of the number of pages of material produced.

Here is the 3E monster index with 2678 entries.

That's a useful index but it's incomplete (it doesn't include any creatures from Dragon or Dungeon) as well as having some duplicate entries, so not great as an estimate of the total number of monsters.

 

[Kramodlog]

See that's not necessarily true.

As far as monsters go, if I apply the same counting criteria to 3.X Edition monsters, and only count each type of dragon once, despite many age categories, I get a total of 4291 official 3rd Edition monsters with stat blocks. That's pocket change away from the 2nd Edition total.

The Compendium for 4th Edition lists 5315 distinct creatures, which is thousand-odd more than 2nd Edition had.

That is surprising. I know 4e and 3.x released a lot of books, but that number seemed below the number of books that were released under 2e. Less books should mean less content.

Is it because 4e was more crunch centric? Its books were bigger and had less fluff, so more monster could fit in? Maybe it seems 2e had more monsters because it was spread over more books, so the number seems bigger.

And as far as number of products goes, Pathfinder is currently neck and neck with the number of products per month that 2nd Edition had at its peak. (Admittedly, any comparison there does depend on exactly what products you choose to count.)

Products is one mesure, the number of pages in a book is another. For me bloat means too much content, more than too many books/products. Althought it isn't mutually exclusive.

 

[Echohawk]

Is it because 4e was more crunch centric? Its books were bigger and had less fluff, so more monster could fit in? Maybe it seems 2e had more monsters because it was spread over more books, so the number seems bigger.

I'd also have thought that, but based on a few samples, it doesn't look like the monster/page count differs that much between 2e and later editions. It is 1e which is the odd one out there.

• 1e Monster Manual II : 2.24 monsters per page (359 stat blocks/160 pages)
• 2e Monstrous Annual 1: 1.02 monsters per page (131 stat blocks/128 pages)
• 3e Monster Manual II : 1.17 monsters per page (263 stat blocks/224 pages)
• 4e Monster Manual II : 1.13 monsters per page (326 stat blocks/288 pages)